How to make your own almond butter

We love almond butter, and we go through a lot of it. It’s not unheard of for us to go through more than 50 oz. in a week!

I was first introduced to almond butter by my husband when we first started dating. One of his favorite snacks at the time was a sliced apple with almond butter and cinnamon. Yum! It is now a favorite snack for all of us.

We also love almond butter with any and all of the following: bananas, blueberries, chocolate, cinnamon, coconut milk, coconut butter and coconut. It’s also delicious with celery sticks, raisins and shredded coconut. And I use it in my baking and for my son’s oat-less oatmeal.

We typically buy our almond butter at Costco, which runs us $5.99 for a 26-ounce jar. This week, I decided to make my own.

For years, we have been unable to buy nuts at Costco because they all had warning labels stating that they were packaged in a facility that also processed wheat. Since my husband has celiac disease, that made them off-limits for us. But I noticed recently that Costco’s nuts no longer contain this warning and my husband does not seem to have any issues after eating them (yay!). This is a huge cost savings for us.

A 3-lb. bag of almonds from Costco cost me $9.99. Based on my calculations, making a 26-ounce jar myself would cost me $5.41 — that’s close to a 10% savings!

You can use this same recipe for making any kind of nut butter — cashew butter, pecan butter, etc.

If you haven’t made nut butter before, you may be tempted to stop your blender or food processor early. Resist the temptation.

At first, you will end up with a lot of chopped nuts along the sides, but if you let it keep running, you will then get a big ball of almonds and then finally creamy almond butter. I like to keep my food processor running for a little while longer after I first notice it becoming creamy to ensure that I don’t have any chunks and to get it to a great creamy texture.

I’m sorry, but almond butter and almonds have equal calories per weight (since they are the same thing). This means a 26 oz jar would need 26 oz of whole almonds. Therefore with those prices, it would cost almost exactly the same to make it yourself or buy it by the jar…